Tag Archives: 6b) Mises.org

“Work or starve” is a common argument used against free-market capitalism. Proponents of the “work or starve” argument argue that capitalism forces one to work or be forced with the prospect of starvation or destitution. This is a mistaken approach since “work or starve” is not a feature of capitalism but rather of the world we live in. By conflating positive rights with negative rights, a perverted type of justice is imagined.We know that humans must...

One of the most familiar terms heard or read today is “social justice.” Ironically, “social justice” is anything but justice. It basically represents double standards, inequality, partiality, prejudice, racism, selectivity, and subjectivity. It has to be one of modernity’s cleverest and most subtle paradoxes.Perhaps the best way to expose it as a paradox is by revealing what genuine and true justice demands when applied evenly and honestly to all people. True justice...

The market always seems to teach retail investors a lesson. Bloomberg reported leveraged EFTs such as The Direxion Daily Semiconductors Bull 3x Shares (ticker SOXL), which delivers triple the daily move of the NYSE Semiconductor Index, took in a record 1.5 billion last week, only to drop “15% Wednesday to extend a 37% loss in the past 14 days.”“The $23 billion ProShares UltraPro QQQ (TQQQ) and the $4 billion ProShares UltraPro S&P 500 (UPRO) fell nearly 7% and...

The term “smart city” conjures images of futuristic utopias where technology seamlessly enhances our daily lives. Traffic flows like a symphony, garbage trucks only show up when needed, and potholes fill themselves while apologizing for the inconvenience. But peel back the glossy veneer, and you’ll find that these so-called smart initiatives are often just a new way to nickel-and-dime residents. Let’s take a tour through the cityscape of this digital pickpocketing.A...

Robert Reich recently asserted that “free markets” aren’t neutral or free, are actually shaped by those who wield power. Reich believes that government powers have been subverted by private interests- this part of his analysis is actually true in many cases. Reich hopes for some sort of miracle whereby countervailing government powers will work in the public interest to suppress greedy monopolists- this part of his analysis is delusional and...

 In a mere 11 minutes on Wednesday night, President Biden settled any doubts about whether he was fit for another four years of the presidency. Uncle Joe wrestled with the teleprompter like a slacker high school boy blindsided by trigonometry questions on the math SAT test. By the end of the Bidens brief spiel, most judges declared that the teleprompter had won by technical knockout.A few weeks ago, Biden declared that it would take “the Lord Almighty” to get him to...

[Editor’s note:  The article below is adapted from a lengthy 1954 memo by Rothbard which is written largely as a review of George B. DeHuszar and Thomas Hulbert Stevenson’s A History of the American Republic. The memo was republished in 2010 by the Mises Institute as part of Strictly Confidential: The Private Volker Fund Memos of Murray N. Rothbard, edited by David Gordon. Rothbard here provides a concise and razor-sharp analysis of how the Mexican-American war and...

I recently viewed Finding the Money, a video aimed at persuading a popular audience of the putative merits of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).  The video debuted this past May on several streaming platforms and theaters throughout the U.S.  Whether it succeeded or not in its purpose, I will leave it for others to judge.   What I found most noteworthy in the 95-minute video was a brief clip of an interview with George Selgin, an economist of some stature in free-market...

The U.K. election is over. While it was in full swing, I happened to find myself watching an interview of party leaders from the 1959 election, and it put so much of the current political landscape into perspective. The video, which you can watch here, takes you back to a time, post war, where there was something Brits called “the post-war consensus.” After the Second World War ended, both major parties came to a philosophical harmony where certain policies were seen...

President Joe Biden announced over the weekend that he is withdrawing from the 2024 presidential election. The announcement follows almost a month of pressure on Biden to drop out after his abysmal debate performance in late June made it impossible to keep hiding the fact that the president is cognitively impaired.The soon-to-be former president and most major players in Democratic politics quickly threw their support behind Vice President Kamala Harris. In the days...